The US right is misrepresenting science to support its racist agenda. There\u2019s far more to it than \u2018good\u2019 or \u2018bad\u2019 genes<\/p>\n
Like so many of us, I was dispirited to wake up a few weeks ago to learn that Donald Trump will be back in the White House. This time he was aided by the world\u2019s richest man and professional spaceship-crasher, Elon Musk. Among the many charming aspects of their partnership is a fondness for some highly unsavoury views on genetics. Trump is an enthusiastic advocate<\/a> of \u201cracehorse theory\u201d, which he shares with white supremacists; the belief that he is personally superior and that this is rooted in his \u201cgood genes\u201d. It\u2019s a vapid idea, but it directly informs his toxic views on immigration, where he argues the country needs to be shielded from the \u201c<\/em>bad genes\u201d <\/em>of outsiders.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Musk has his own equally baffling take on genetics, infused with a characteristic messiah complex. Like some of his fellow tech moguls, he is determined to \u201csave humanity\u201d by producing as many offspring<\/a> as possible, convinced that our future depends on it. This might all be laughable were it not for the fact that Trump and Musk now wield more power than they ever have before. The shared thread running through their rhetoric is genetic determinism: the idea that who you are, and what you can achieve, is all down to your DNA. Nothing else matters.<\/p>\n Jonathan Roberts is a genetic counsellor and academic who researches health inequalities and the accessibility of genetic testing<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The US right is misrepresenting science to support its racist agenda. There\u2019s far more to it than \u2018good\u2019 or \u2018bad\u2019 genes Like so many of us, I was dispirited to wake up a few weeks ago to learn that Donald Trump will be back in the White House. This time he was aided by the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}